The Entrepreneur Roller Coaster
Darren Hardy
Description
66 PER CENT OF SMALL BUSINESSES FAIL—AND IT’S NOT FOR THE REASONS YOU THINK.
This book is designed for those new (or early stage) to entrepreneurship or those who have watched from afar and have wanted/wished to join in, but the fear of the unknown has kept them stupefied and in paralysis.
This book will detail the worst (which is not so scary after all) and the best (which is absolutely thrilling) of being in business for yourself and give you the essential skills to be successful (preventing the 66 per cent death rate).
The focus of the book is on the emotional journey one takes when they step onto the wild ride of entrepreneurship. It’s meant to warn (forthcoming fears, doubts and self-defeating conditioning of past/upbringing), inoculate (from the naysayers, dream stealers and pains of rejection and failure) and guide them (building those undeveloped skills of independence, self-motivation and self-accountability) safely past the landmines that blow up (cause failure) of 66 per cent of all new businesses.
Key words: Business, Entrepreneurship
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My Notes
Chapter 1: What it really takes to survive and thrive in business
The first and most important factor in building a successful business is that you have to love it.
On leaving a ‘good job’ – True to my word, I never did go back. I walked away from it all – the fancy office, the (so called) prestige, and the money – all of it. I had learned that I was skilled, but I had also learned I didn’t like applying those skills to anything that wasn’t aligned with who I wanted to be.
Elon Musk said that starting a company is like “staring into the abyss and eating glass”.
‘Looking for my passion’ is just an excuse in disguise. We use it to cover up for the fact that we’re not progressing, growing, and taking action in life.
What about Bono, Branson, or Oprah? If you saw their schedules - the day in, day out demands they are under, and the pressure they shoulder - you wouldn’t think what they do 95 per cent of the time is that great at all. The rest of their days are spent in endless meetings, negotiations, contract reviews, lawsuits, makeup chairs, rehearsals, travel and transportation.
I don’t care what you do, it’s going to suck most of the time. Tell yourself, ‘This work is going to suck 95 per cent of the time’. But the other five per cent is freaking awesome!!
Be passionate on ‘how’ you do it – story of his housekeeper: It took me a while to get it, but over time I realised she wasn’t doing it for me; she was doing it for ‘herself’. She just loved doing things with excellence. She thrived on it. Leticia was one of the most passionately engaged people I had ever known. Not because of ‘what’ she did or even ‘why’ she did it, but because of ‘how’. Leticia was turned on by a third switch – being passionate about ‘how’ to do things.
I love this switch because it’s more challenging than the others. It’s easy to be switched on by what you do or even why you do it. But to bring passion to ‘how’ you do even the most (seemingly) mundane tasks? That’s no easy feat.
When you flip the ‘passion’ switch on – opportunity finds you, and people beat a path to your door.
By our very nature, we are motivated to either seek pleasure, or avoid pain. Please is surely an effective motivator, but of the two, pain is better – we’ll do almost anything to avoid it.
While our ancient brain system has evolved to help us survive, it also hides a great secret to achievement – motivation. You can hack your ancient brain and use it to give you ‘superhuman’ powers – all you need to do is find your ‘fight’.
Almost every great achievement began with someone finally getting ticked off, saying, ‘enough’ and standing up to fight.
The reality is love and hate are the same thing – just looking in different directions. If you love something, you equally hate what threatens it. If you love health and wellbeing, then you probably hate cancer and heart disease. If you love whales, then you probably hate global chemical pollution. Being successful in business requires an ‘emotional charge’. Love is great, but if that desire to right a wrong, fight the good fight, or seek justice, then it’s just as good as love or often better.
It’s about how well you can identify your unique advantages, and ‘flex’ those muscles to move your business.
Like Buffett we all have unique skills, talents and advantages. All of us. There is something you do that most people cannot do well.
Don’t get involved with functions that are not in your circle of competency or strength. It doesn’t do you any good, and it certainly won’t make the ride easier.
No, my DNA wasn’t special. But then again:
Richard Branson has dyslexia and had poor academic performance as a student. His headmaster told him he would likely end up in prison.
Steve Jobs was born to two college students who didn’t want to raise him and gave him up for adoption.
No matter what your DNA is, no matter who calls you into the office, ‘you always get to decide’. You are the creator of your own destiny while you traverse this planet.
There is not place I’d rather be that in my studio ‘creating great art’.
Love your work.
If you’d rather be anywhere but doing your great work on a Saturday morning, you’re probably doing the wrong thing.
Mastery is something developed through about 10,000 hours of ‘deliberate focused practice’. Becoming world class isn’t dependent upon our genes, he argues. Its dependent on how much time we can consistently dedicate to getting better.
What consistently differentiates these ‘masters’ is their love and passion for what they do is so intense (some would call it an obsession). The intensity of their pursuits leads to extraordinary results.
They are obsessed about what they do, and they have an unrelenting desire to get better and better and better.
These people have really found something to love. Because of that great love, they have developed a nearly maniacal drive to continually improve their skills, performance and outcomes.
We can all become ‘geniuses’ and reach mastery in any area of our lives if we commit to a process of consistent and never-ending improvement.
Are you willing to work harder, be more focused, have deeper concentration, and do it longer, more regularly, and with more discipline and vigour that anyone else?
Chapter 2: You will be thrashed about severely at times
Only about 10 per cent of people are entrepreneurs.
The ‘big herd’, the other 90 per cent don’t like it when a ‘freak’ steps out of line. That kind of non-conformity threatens them. It challenges their choices and identity. Rather than step out of themselves, it’s safer for them to scorn your choices and attack you, in hope of dragging you back into the herd so they can feel better about themselves.
When you choose to become an entrepreneur – to be different – and walk out on that 90 per cent, something strange happens. Instead of encouraging and supporting you, your friends, family and colleagues become crabby and start trying to crag you down into the ‘trap’. Beware the crabs.
There are two reasons for this;
You make them look bad
They simply aren’t as courageous as you
People don’t resent you for being brave. They resent themselves for being afraid.
If I ever felt myself getting caught up in or brought down by what other people thought of me, whether or not they approved of what I was doing or wearing, all I had to do was ask myself if they would be one of the 10 people to cry at my funeral. Instantly their rejection would lose any power over my emotions.
But it isn’t till age 65 that we realise the truth: All this time nobody has really been thinking about us at all. Most of the time people don’t really care enough to be thinking of you – they’re far too busy thinking about themselves. And if they are thinking of you, it is only in the context of how you are making them look. Get a grip. Don’t let people who don’t matter, matter. Stand up taller, sooner. Fuck em.
Know there will be dark days. There will be many dark days, but the few good days are really, really good.
Chapter 3: Shut your mouth (and other sales essentials)
The one thing that matters most in determining whether your business succeeds or fails miserably is ‘sales’. Here’s how it works: ‘The ultimate success of a product or service is 10 per cent product quality and 90 per cent sales. Like it or not (and I don’t) it’s not a whoever-has-the-best-product wins world. Apple won because of its outstanding sales and marketing.
The person who knows how to get, keep and cultivate a customer gets paid the most.
From the first glow of your computer screen in the morning to the last loose end time up before heading home, you need to be ‘selling’.
A sale tells you if you ‘even have a business’.
Your only insurance policy is to go sell something. My business was nothing until I sold something.
Now more than ever the fate of your business, dreams and future hinges on your ability to sell better than your competition. Otherwise the roller coaster will come screeching to a halt.
Sales is not a way to get something, it’s a way to give something. If you need to make one change, ‘stop selling’.
Don’t sell, just HELP!!!!!
If helping doesn’t work, you have the wrong prospect or the wrong product.
No. 1 quality in your ‘helping’ is ‘empathy’.
Get in your client’s beds mentally. Imagine what your client is thinking about;
What are they thinking about?
What are they worried about?
Who are they worried about?
What do they fear?
Who do they fear?
What do they hope for?
Who do they hope to impress?
What are their dreams, desires, goals?
What do you think they need most help with?
What resources, ideas, or assistance are they looking for to overcome that unspoken fears or accomplish their innermost desires?
Don’t just think about the questions, feel them.
You will find your best sales and marketing language in – who they are, what they are trying to become, and what they are trying to do. You will create language rich with empathy. With it you’ll be able to speak from their perspective and straight to their hearts, from your own.
Find a perceived need and help someone fulfil it. If the customer doesn’t perceive the need, there is no need.
Pull, don’t push
Investigate, don’t present
Probe, don’t pitch
Ask, don’t assume
How do you do this?
Talk less – listen more
Make fewer statements – ask more questions
If you want to master one skill that will skyrocket your sales success, learn ‘how to ask better questions’.
Discover what is most important to each client. (Story of the real estate agent that sold a $4 million parking space). He didn’t want the condo; he wanted the parking space.
Find your clients most important ‘hot button’ and connect the solution he has to meet it. One you do find that ‘hot button’ focus all of your effort and education on their number one need or desire. Take the time to connect those customers to ‘personalised solutions’. Adjust your message to their individual needs.
Don’t make cold calls. Cold calls are for rookies. You need a referral from a credible trusted source. Find someone to get you personally introduced. Identify those two or three dots to connect.
Look for ‘influencers’ (innovators or early adopters) – people with their own large networks, who, if they like your idea, venture, business or opportunity could generate entire volumes of transactions for you.
Focus on the best buyers, which are about 10 per cent of your client base. ‘Sell to the best, forget the rest’.
Best buyers;
Love your product or service
They buy your best products
They buy in bigger quantities
They buy frequently
They’re a joy to work with
They love to tell their friends about you
Spend 90 per cent of your time focused on the 10 per cent client type.
How do you find the 10 per cent?
Easy. They’re readily accessible and easy to reach, costing you little advertising, marketing and sales effort.
Fast. They have the greatest, most obvious perceived need, so when presented with your solution, they see value quickly and are quick to make a decision to purchase.
Profitable. Once converted, their lifetime value is high because of their transaction size, upsell purchases, frequency of repeat purchases, and referrals.
Narrow your client target group. Focus on fewer people. Those you dream on being in business with.
What are the ‘best of the best’ worth?
Your entire business, starts, is sustained by, and ends with sales.
Chapter 4: Find the best or die with the rest
On recruiting advert ‘Rock star executive assistant wanted: looking for something fun, flexible, fast-paced, working on projects that make a significant positive difference in people’s lives? If so, you have found you’re dream opportunity!’
The only way to ‘make a dent in the universe’ and achieve your mission is learn how to recruit, keep and draw the best out of top talent.
Entrepreneurs are major suckers to ‘anyone’ who shows enthusiasm for our cause.
Don’t hire enthusiasm, hire evidence. Hire evidence, not hope.
Hiring poorly, costs your business overheads dearly. When you hire wrong, you not only paying for them, you’re paying for the errors, the mistakes, and the cancer they spread through the building.
Find A-players. A-players want to work with other A-players.
Businesses are people. That’s it. It’s not about products, it’s about the people behind them. The team that fields the best players, wins.
A-players are free, they pay for themselves.
A business is nothing more than a group of people brought together to accomplish a mission.
The culture of an organisation evolves around the people who make up the company.
To have a high-performance culture, you need to hire and maintain high performance people.
The single most important thing you need to do is ‘pick the right people and keep them’.
Selection is 95 per cent of success.
Always be the dumbest one in the room. Be disciplined in having the smartest and the best people in every chair around your leadership table. Your sole job is to get them to the table so they can deliver.
‘We don’t train our people to be friendly, we hire friendly people’. Hire people who already have good attributes.
Warren Buffett looks for; integrity (honesty), intelligence and energy. And he warns if they don’t have the first quality, the others will work against you.
Could this person fall in love with what we do here?
People don’t want what you think they want. The five things they are looking for is (in priority order).
People – Great people want to work with other great people.
Challenge – Each night, people want to climb into bed feeling exhausted yet satisfied by the great work they did that day.
Opportunity – They want to ‘help’ make it happen. People are attracted to a vision. Attracted like-minded people who share that vision.
Growth – Learn to help people with more than just their jobs; learn to help people with their lives. If you develop the reputation of being a company that cares about people’s lives, you will have more great people knocking on your door than you know what to do with.
Money – Great people want to be paid well for delivering great work.
If you’re putting ads out to hire, the ad should talk about ‘the opportunity to work with talented, fun, passionate and high-character people who are fired up about the great mission, and vision you are trying to realise’. Explain how you invest in people to help them grow, develop and achieve their goals-professionally and personally. Then at the footnote is the compensation package.
What makes work fun, is doing meaningful work.
Their work, their life (the two-thirds you influence) has to be fun, meaningful and rewarding.
Don’t hire to put out fires. Hire ahead of your growth. Hire to conquer new frontiers. Hire to launch new initiatives.
You’ve got the people, now take time to lead them.
Chapter 5: Leadership – stepping up without screwing up
There is only one factor that limits the growth of a company; the owner. It’s the owner’s ambition. It’s up the owner to set the pace, clear the obstacles, get the resources, and create the conversations to grow the company faster.
The most important thing a CEO manages, is himself, and everything else falls into place.
As a leader, I am my only constraint.
As a leader you have 100 per cent responsibility for everything. Don’t waste your time blaming.
When a team isn’t doing well – they fire the coach. When a business isn’t doing well – they fire the CEO.
When your ship comes in, you’re going to win big. But if the ship doesn’t, you’re going down with it, captain.
Knowing that everything hinges on you, there’s only one question you should be asking right now: How’s my leadership?
A boss leads by authority, fear and command. You’ll do it because I said so. I’m the boss. Everyone hates bosses, don’t be a boss. And managers? They try to incentivise with brass rings, starbarks Starbucks? cards and the chance to ring the bell. If you do what I say I’ll give you this. Managers are weenies, don’t be a manager. Be a leader.
Leaders set the pace, create the standards. The speed, quality and culture of the pack are determined by the leader. The most underused, but most important principle of leadership is ‘lead by example’.
Remember the story of the teacher who walked in front saying, ‘come on children follow me’. As a leader you only need to say, ‘follow me’ and make your action your instruction.
Ask only of others to do what you have done yourself first.
Kids don’t listen, they watch. We never stopped watching. It is part of our evolution – those who mirror those around them could gain acceptance in the tribe. Psychologists call these mirror neurons. The mirror neurons are always working below our level of unconsciousness. People will eventually model and match your behaviour particularly the one deemed the ‘leader’.
Your people don’t listen to you, but they do watch you. They are always watching. Be the example. You are on stage at all times. Your team will reflect what you project. Lead by example.
The aim of the leader is not to be liked ‘it’s to lead’. To do the right thing. And more often than not the right thing is not the popular thing.
Leaders don’t tell you what to think, they encourage you to think for yourself. They don’t dictate, they facilitate. Encourage even the quietest voices to speak. Every voice is important.
You need to remove the weeds (fears, inhibitions, uncertainties), water and fertilise (invest in their personal growth), and provide the sunshine (your positive attitude, belief in them, and example) to transform that miraculous seed inside them into a beautiful harvest of results and productivity.
You need to quit almost everything you do at the office. Once the founder has a vision, the key to achieving the vision is to delegate as much as possible. The last bit that should remain is the ‘visionary leader’. Get out of the way, let others take the lead. You’re the head coach, not the player. We’re a team, not a family, it’s the coach’s job at every level to develop, and cut smartly so we have stars in every position. The coach’s job is also to recruit, develop and trade up for the best player in every one of those positions. Every chair in the office needs to be the best it can be.
Chapter Six: Become insanely productive – without losing your mind
Focus your time, energy and resources on those things that matter most. Build an excellent team that can do the rest.
The rainmaker has one job, ‘make it rain’. The vital functions of a business owner are;
Pitching and listening to clients (finding work & presenting prices)
Negotiating a contract with clients (winning work)
Finding new clients (finding new avenues of work)
Track the time you spend on your vital functions.
After figuring out your three vital functions, what is your one vital function? – The one thing that contributes most to your enterprise? The thing that if increased and improved will be the factor contributing to all the numbers being increased downstream. Then figure out how to plot and scheme to spend the most of your time on that one vital function (remember the Richard Branson story of the three priorities, and public speaking is not one of them).
Narrow your priorities. Any time you feel overwhelmed, a good chance it will be a lack of clear priorities. Vital functions = business level. Vital priorities = day to day.
Warren Buffet’s key to success is saying ‘no’ ninety-nine times out of a hundred solicitations of his time and attention. Learn to say no. It’s a ‘hell yeah’ or don’t even consider it.
Be as proud of what you didn’t do, as what you do do.
Concentrate and be online. Turn off autopilot. Avoid missing the exists. We don’t fall of course; we drift off course through daily bad habits.
You don’t succeed just by learning. You have to study, then do. We need to learn less and do more.
Every dollar that you invest in personal development adds thirty to your bottom line.
The greatest athletes hire the best coaches, consultants and advisors. Why don’t you?
Invest in yourself. Bet on yourself – it always yields the highest returns.
The key to winning is to be ‘brilliant at the basics’.
Chapter 7: Terror is part of the thrill
Only one thing stops us from achieving what we’re capable of: fear. Courage is not the absence of fear – it’s feeling the fear and proceeding anyway.
Fear is not real – sure it ‘feels’ real – the pounding heart, knocking knees and sweaty palms. Those are real enough symptoms, but the thing we’re actually afraid of is an illusion, an invention of the mind. The only thing that can make you scared, is how your mind interprets things. It’s our ancient brain that controls this from tribal days. Our brain was on constant alert for danger to keep us safe. It was the humans with the best brains that best monitored and quickly responded to threats who survived. So, our brains are still doing the same thing today, triggering our nervous system to respond to threats, although this time it’s when standing in front of a group doing a presentation. We’re using a primitive tool to run an everyday life.
The most successful person in the room, is the one who’s failed the most.
Accept failure in the following steps:
Level One – Rejection and failure are not bad
Level Two – Accept failure as part of the process
Level Three – You love failure and become addicted to pushing yourself to gain more of it.
After Level Three, the resistance is removed and the pendulum swings to success, wealth and happiness.
Chapter Eight: Don’t miss the point
‘I had houses. Too many houses. I invested money. Money! I should have been investing my heart. What I needed was more people. More relationships.’
Don’t want what you don’t want.
Spend the time perusing the things you would want said at your eulogy.
Jeff Bezos story - He asked himself when he was 80 years old, what would he regret trying? No, he wouldn’t regret.
During a research study, one man in his eighties was asked: “If you could come back and live the life of anyone, who would you want to come back as?” His answer: “I would want to come back as the man I could have been, but never was.”
Be the person you could be now.
This is my mountain, and I’m going all the way to the top. You are going to see me waving from the summit of lying dead on the side. I am not coming back.
Potential underutilised leads to pain.
“The success of your business will be found in what you choose to do every day.”
